The first episode of the eighth season in coincidentally the 100th episode of the show and ‘Mercy’ is being described as a ‘return to form’.

ComicBook.com describes Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes as having an “impressive and fun-to-watch swagger” with extra praise to the innovative “storytelling devices unlike any used on the series to date”.

Elsewhere, one critic for Insider teases, “If you’ve been waiting for Rick to get it together and come down hard on the Saviours, you won’t be disappointed. You’ll be cheering alongside him.”

Forbes, however, weren’t so generous saying that the showrunners have “failed to make significant improvements to the increasingly sloppy writing and plotting, and continue to treat the show’s viewers as though we’re stupid”.